Steering wheel made of bended wood



I Sept. 22, 1936. G. NAGASAKI STEERING WHEEL MADE OF BENDED WOOD Filed Jan. 2, 1935 A TTORNEYS.

Patented Sept. 22, 1936 ATENT OFFICE STEERING WHEEL MADE OF BENDED WOOD Gennosuke Nagasaki, Yuzawa-Machi, Okachi- Gun, Akita-Ken, Japan Application January 2, 1935, Serial No. 189

2 Claims.

A steering wheel made of wood and hitherto used in automobiles, motor boats etc. has been manufactured in such a manner that its rim is formed by cutting away the circular pieces from 5 wood board or by connecting a few pieces of wood,

and to this rim the metallic spokes are fixed.

However, the steering wheel manufactured in this manner has the drawback that it is .easily broken down, because of the fact that the grain 1c of the wood is cut off and the stress of the wood is not uniform. Moreover, the hitherto manufactured steering wheel has the disadvantage that it is heavy and its price is not cheap. To remove these drawbacks and disadvantages has been long a pending question.

This invention is proposed to remove these drawbacks and disadvantages, and therefore, the object of this invention is toovercome them by performing the manufacturing method in such a way that one piece of wood is bended by heating and making it soft, both ends of which being so connected as to form a rim which has the natural straight grain of the wood along its entire periphery, the said rim being provided with 25 spokes which are made of three pieces of wood bended by heating to form substantially V-shaped pieces of wood and connected to each other at their back surface, each piece constituting onehalf of two adjacent spokes, and each adjoining 3O spoke has the straight grain of the Wood along its length, and if desired, all surfaces may be lacquered, painted or varnished.

This invention will best be understood by reference to the accompanying drawing, in which I 35 have illustrated the preferred form of a steering wheel made of bended wood for carrying out this invention, and in which Fig. 1 illustrates one piece of wood and shows a method of forming a rim by bending, Fig. 2 is one of the pieces for the spokes which may be bended to form a V- shaped piece of wood, Fig. 3 shows a sectional side elevation of the steering wheel of this invention and Fig. 4 is a plan view.

In carrying out this present invention any kind of wood can be used for the purpose providing it is hard and rigid enough. However, wood from trees having broad leaves is one of the best to employ. After selecting the suitable wood as required, one piece of the wood is bent so as to form a circle by the application of heat during the bending process until the wood is made soft enough for the purpose of this invention. Both ends of the piece are so connected as to form a rim which has the straight grains of the Wood along its periphery.

Both ends (A) (B) of the said bended piece of wood are cut out to form saw-teeth, wedge or the other suitable shape and they are engaged with each other. To these engaged ends the glue or the other suitable cementing ma- 5 terial is applied in order to fix them. And then they are whittled by the lathe to form the regular rim (C) which has the straight grain of the wood along its entire periphery. Then the wood of the same property as that of the rim is bended to form A-shaped wood by heating to soften the same. Thus formed three pieces of wood (D1) (D2) (D3) are brought in contact with each other at their back surfaces (in this case, it is preferable that the grains of the one is opposite in direction to that of the other). The glue or the other cementing material is applied to these contact surfaces (G) in order to connect them sufficiently. To the boss portion the wood screws (H) or the other bolts are screwed and finally the spokes (D) are constructed by whittling them.

When the rim and spokes are manufactured in this way, the spokes (D) are rigidly fixed to the rim (C). There are various methods for fixing these to the rim.

One example is as follows:A step (E) is formed in each top end of the spokes and a recess (F) corresponding to it is provided on the inside of the rim. Thus the step is rigidly inserted into the recess and the said inserted portion is secured by a wood screw. If desired, the boss is provided with a metallic bushing, and then all surfaces are lacquered, painted or varnished by known methods.

As above mentioned, the rim and the spokes in this invention are respectively made by bending one piece of wood and grain of the wood is caused to run naturally along the rim and spokes in order that the stresses may be in one direction. Consequently, the steering wheel manufactured by this invention is extremely robust and is lighter in weight than those hitherto used by about one-third.

Moreover, the steering wheel in this invention can be placed on sale at a very cheap price.

Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of this invention and in what manner the same is to be performed I declare that what I claim is:-

1. A method of manufacturing a steering Wheel which consists in heating a piece of wood to soften same, bending the softened piece of wood, connecting the ends of the rim, heating other pieces of wood to soften same with the grain of these latter pieces extending along their lengths, bending the latter to form substantially A-shaped pieces to provide spokes for the wheel, connecting the back surfaces of the legs of said latter pieces to each other and connecting the ends of the legs to the rim.

2. A method of manufacturing a steering wheel comprising bending one piece of Wood into substantially circular form, connecting the ends of the piece to each other to constitute a rim, bending other pieces of Wood to form substantially A-shaped pieces to provide spokes for the rim and connecting the legs of said other pieces to each other and to the rim so that each of said other pieces constitutes one-half of two adjacent spokes.

GENNOSUKE NAGASAKI. 

